(CORPUS CHRISTI) – Welles D. Bacon, 72, of Corpus Christi, has been sentenced to ten years imprisonment for possessing child pornography, United States Attorney Tim Johnson announced today.

At a hearing this afternoon, United States District Court Judge Janice Graham Jack sentenced Bacon to 120 months in federal prison to be followed by a lifetime term of supervised release during which he must register as a sex offender and comply with a host of conditions designed to protect children and limit his use of the internet.

Indicted in June 2009, Bacon pleaded guilty in July 2009 admitting to having subscribed to several pay child pornography websites beginning in 2005 and continuing until 2008. During that period, Bacon received numerous videos and images containing child pornography, many of which involved sadism and masochism perpetrated on the real, prepubescent child victims. The child pornography was discovered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the Corpus Christi Police Department during the execution of a federal search warrant on Bacon’s Corpus Christi home on Feb. 6, 2009. At that time, Bacon readily admitted to acquiring and possessing child pornography for several years. Following that hearing, the court ordered Bacon into custody.

In determining the sentence she ultimately handed down today, Judge Jack considered Bacon’s decades long history of sexual interest in children. Judge Jack sentenced Bacon to the maximum term of imprisonment allowed by statute. In pronouncing sentence Judge Jack told Bacon she regretted that she was unable to sentence Bacon to more than ten years.

Assistant United States Attorney Lance Duke prosecuted the case.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.